I didn't say they were, did I? I said the men made a choice of one over the other, and that is a true statement. You know it. These men were told they could have one or the other. First, they chose the priesthood. Then they changed their minds and chose marriage. It may be that what they really want is both, but they aren't currently offered that option, and they did in fact make a conscious choice of one over the other.
It is true that the Church doesn't have to force them to choose, but the fact is they do. I personally agree with the Church's reasons for doing so.
>>>>> Lay Catholics, by and large, no longer value celibacy in their priests the way they once did, especially when they see married men performing clerical duties.
Some lay Catholics anyway. Obviously you don't speak for all of us, and even for committed American Catholics, I'm not sure the "by and large" is accurate.
You view the issue from an secularized American lens (or modernist Catholic if you prefer that term), and you make the all to common mistake of thinking the rest of the world agrees with you. I don't think that's a warranted assumption.
>>>>Oldironsides reaction is the reaction of every other Catholic I've ever had this discussion with.
You have discussed the issue online with a number of us, and we don't all have that reaction.
patent
Of course. If I don't agree with you about a changeable Church discipline, I must be a modernist. That's cheap, patent, and you're above that.
You have discussed the issue online with a number of us, and we don't all have that reaction.
FR tends, both politically and religiously, to be further to the right than both the American population and the Catholic population. The fact is, surveys among Catholics, for 25 years, have shown that the American Catholic population favors opening the priesthood to married men.